


The Only Thing Worse Than Hating is Loving

by kiwamitao



Category: Attack on Titan, Shingeki no Kyojin
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friendship, Major Character Injury, Possible Character Death, Probably not character death, Romance, Sad, Sports
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:31:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwamitao/pseuds/kiwamitao
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In middle school, Mikasa Ackerman was called the "Spiking Empress of Shiganshina". The day of her volleyball Inter-middle finals, she got into an accident, causing her to need a prosthetic leg; now, she's just your average, socially lacking highschooler at Trost Academy, struggling with the classmate she hates, the boy she loves, and the fact that saying "I love you" is much harder than saying "I hate you" or that sometimes, "I'm back"s are harder to say than goodbyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Spiking Empress of Shiganshina

**Author's Note:**

> wowow my first story guys! I have it all planned out already, so hopefully it'll go as planned... I have no idea how long it's gonna go on to be, but I think the chapter lengths are going to differ based on content and the time I actually have to do it.  
> well here it is, I hope you enjoy...

Mikasa Ackerman, first year at Trost Academy sighed as she watched her classmates form little groups, preparing to play volleyball. Her hands twitched as a ball rolled toward her but she didn’t give in to her urge to pick it up. Someone jogged over to get it and she looked to see a tall brunette standing before her. Jean Kirstein. For some unknown reason, Jean Kirstein seemed to have hated her from the very moment they met; yet, instead of simply avoiding her, he constantly seemed go out of his to pester her and say rude things. Therefore, Mikasa returned those hateful feelings. It seemed that now, he had another thing to say.

"Oi Ackerman, skipping PE again?"

"Don’t you ask this everyday?" she grumbled, wrapping her scarf around her tighter. “You’re annoying."

“Tch. Annoying!” He scoffed. “ _You’re_ annoying.”

Rolling her eyes, she looked away from him and pulled out her phone to check her messages. None. No one to become a diversion from this hopelessly aggravating guy. All she had was this morning's greeting text from her two favorite people, Eren and Armin... not that anyone other than them texted her anyways. Sighing, she put it away and crossed her arms, watching as one of her classmates got hit in the back of the head and face planted onto the gym floor. The guy who hit her laughed as he helped her up and offered his shirt to stop her nosebleed. “Is that all you have to say?”

“Hmph. I thought volleyball was your forte, Miss ‘Spiking Empress of Shiganshina’,” He spun the soft, white ball in his hands and chuckled as he saw her eyes widen. “I guess the rumors of you quitting because you thought no one was good enough to play you was true.” She didn’t reply so he continued, “I guess geniuses are all the same-- taking for granted what they have, looking down on others who don’t; I hate people like that,” Jean bounces the ball once and catches it again. “If I had talent, I would play. If I could play, I would.”

He gave her one last smug look and ‘tch’-ed, jogging back to his group who had proceeded to play with a different ball. Mikasa stretched out her legs, picking lint off her leggings while frowning at her left leg. If I could play, I would, too… But no matter how many times I check, my leg is still made of metal. As long as I have this prosthetic leg, I can never play volleyball again.

********************************************************************************************************************************

Friday afternoon, the greatest time of the week. It’s the time to go out and play with friends without any worry about finishing homework… except, one, Mikasa had no friends aside from Eren Jaeger and Armin Arlert, who went to an all-boys school twenty minutes away from her own. Though she met with them often, she felt that the duo had created a world unknown to her in their new school. The two were inseparable; she felt that even though the three hung out together, there were many things she no longer understood when it concerned her two childhood friends. It might’ve been because they were roommates, or they were fellow boys, but nonetheless it somewhat bothered her. Especially the fact that the neither of them could get the hint… as much as she loved Armin, he never seemed to understand that she loved Eren in a way different from how she loved Armin or how Armin loved him. Not that she told them any of that stuff, anyways.

  
Two, it was raining, hard, and all Mikasa wanted to do was go home and wipe down that prosthetic leg of hers. Rain wasn’t unusual for Japan, so she felt it was stupid of her that she would forget an umbrella on such a cloudy day. Even though rain had little to no effect on her fake leg, it still bothered her.

  
 _I guess I should just finish all my homework tonight, since Eren and Armin probably have practice anyways. I could go see their practice tomorrow, and then we can go eat cake or something._ She pulls out her cell phone and opens up her group message with the two boys. Though she did want her alone time with Eren, she could never bring herself to exclude Armin.. even though that’s kind of what the boys are doing to her.

  
“‘There’s new cafe by my school, and it’s supposed to have really good pastries! Wanna go after your practice tomorrow?’ Okay! and... send!” Smiling, she tucks her phone back into her school bag and then sighs, thinking of what Armin was probably going to say when he replies.

 _"Probably some nagging about how I needed to make some female friends to do these things with,"_  She thought. _"Actually, I just need friends… But Eren keeps saying that the reason I don’t have any friends is because I act too nonchalant about everything-- But I will change that! I mean, not that it helped that the only interaction I had throughout the six months between the accident and high school with people of my own age were with Eren and Armin. They like some pretty weird stuff, and it’s not something I can actually talk to other people about. I will make a friend, and then we can hang out after school and eat cakes and--"_

  
Her foot slips on the slick gravel, and she tumbles down the small slope, landing on her side and hitting her head hard against the ground. Her vision blurs as she tries to pick herself up, and lays back down. Lifting up her arm, she sees a small gashes and torn skin, wincing as her blood mixes with the dirt.

  
“Hey, you! Are you alright?” Someone jogged down the hill towards her and she looked to see who it was, only able to make out the figure of a man. Why does this voice sound all too familiar? “ I just saw someone fall down this hill from my window and-- Oh shit, Ackerman!?” The owner of the voice crouched beside her and inspected her body. His face zoomed in as he slowly picked her up, and she could just barely make out the ash-brown hair and constantly angry-looking light brown eyes that she hated. Groaning, she tried, failing, to push him away. “Ugh… Jean… Let.. G-go..”

  
“Well I can’t just leave you here, not in the state you’re in. I mean,” he walks over to her bag and picks that up, too. “Geez, at least I’m not some old pervert here to take you home and rape you. ” Jean’s fingers graze over her ripped leggings and the hidden, smooth metal now shown beneath. “But I am, however, gonna have to take you home before anybody else sees this.”

"I... I don't need your help..."

"Christ, Mikasa, you can barely stay conscious. I swear, I won't do anything to you. I wouldn't, even if you begged!" Jean started walking to his apartment and glanced at her wet, dirt stained face.  _Actually, if this girl begged, I probably wouldn't hesitate to do something._ He chuckled as he fumbled with his keys. _Jesus, what'm I saying now? Just because I find out about this prosthetic of hers shouldn't change the fact that she's no longer the girl I once admired..._ "The 'Spiking Empress of Shiganshina'."

 


	2. The Weight of Truths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jean is hot.

Mikasa woke up snuggled in a soft but pleasantly unfamiliar smelling bed in an unknown room, her head aching and vision blurry as she looked around. It was a small, simple bedroom, with the bed she was in on one side and a neat desk and bookshelf on the other. There were several anime posters and figurines around the room, and when she squinted she saw that the bookshelf contained mainly manga and dvd sets.

“Oh? You’re awake.”

Jean stood in the doorway, a cup of water in one hand and groggily mussing up his bird’s nest of a head with the other. Smiling sheepishly, he offered over the cup. “Water?”

“Nnn, thanks.”

Through half-lidded eyes, Mikasa watched Jean as she drank the refreshing liquid slowly. He stood by the door awkwardly, as if waiting to take the cup away. Mikasa studied him carefully, internally laughing when she saw his pajamas. For some reason, the Code Geass pajama pants and graphic tee shirt with the rolled sleeves suited him all too well.  Handing back the cup, she smirked. “Nice outfit. If you didn’t walk in like that, I never would’ve been able to guess who’s room this was.”

“Wha- It’s comfy, okay?”

Mikasa chuckled as his face turned beet red. “It’s alright! Code Geass was a great show. I just didn’t expect you to like it.”

“Hey, we all have our guilty pleasures, and mine just so happens to be anime.”

“And I assume you like to take weekly trips to Akihabara?” Jean was silent, his face flushed with embarrassment as he slowly started to put away the figurines.  “My friends Eren and Armin do too, they go all the time. They’re roommates in their dorm, and if you saw their collection of manga and dvd sets, you’d die.”

Jean paused his movements and glanced over at Mikasa. “Really?”

“Yeah, they converted their closet into this one big bookshelf, and it’s practically stuffed with the stuff.”

Grinning, Jean pulled up a chair beside the bed. “Y’know, Mikasa? Somehow, you’re different from how you are at school. Relaxed.”

“I guess I feel comfortable because you remind me of my two best friends… even though I still think you’re a dick. Just a little less than before, since you saved me. Plus, I have no reason to be tense around someone who already knows my secret, do I? ” She lifts her leg out of the bedding to show her smooth, metal leg, starting at her upper left thigh, reaching all the way to the end of her metal foot. It shone as the morning light reflected upon it, and Jean reached out to touch it, in awe. “It looks like a real leg, but metal. How does it feel? Why doesn’t it have that fake skin over it? Why can’t-” He stopped and blushed. “Sorry, I’m asking so many questions.”

“It’s fine, really. It hurts at first, because it’s a lot of pressure where the prosthetic connects with the other part of the thigh, but you get used to it. The fake skin was too real for me. Even though I don’t want other people to know about it, I also don’t want to make it seem like it never happened. And how does it feel? Well physically, I don’t feel anything. But emotionally, it really hurts. ‘Why me?’ you know? Like I had so much I wanted to do, so much I wanted to experience!” Sighing, Mikasa boosts herself up and out of the bed, stretching. “But it’s fine now. There are lots of things I can do with this leg… Where’s your toilet?”

“Ah, right by the kitchen.”

“Thanks.”

Jean watches as she exits the room, and Mikasa stops to look at her reflection in the dark TV. They both sigh, thinking, “What she/I really wanted to do… was win nationals, wasn't it?”

  


Mikasa POV

Staring at my reflection in Jean’s TV, I realized that I was virtually unchanged from last year, the last time I ever saw my full, real body reflection. Even though now, I have this shiny, polished metal leg, and my hair is a foot shorter, my body, my face, it hasn’t changed at all. The last time I saw my full body reflection, and the day I hurt myself was the same day as the Inter-Middle finals.

It was the day of the Inter-Middle finals when it happened. I stood in front of the long closet mirror, admiring my smooth, porcelain skin and the maroon and white uniform that matched it so well. My hair was still long, silky and so black that it made my skin look even paler. I put on my court shoes and smiled at how well the color coordinated with my uniform, though of course, that wasn’t why I originally bought them. I was in peak condition that day. From my head to my toes, I could feel it, that this year, I was finally going to win nationals. It was in the pit of my stomach, a certain nervousness that probably came from the fact that I was about to go head-to-head with last year’s champions.

For the past three years, I was called the “Spiking Empress of Shiganshina”, a nickname that was a curse as much as it was a gift; it not only went with my ability as a “genius” spiker, but also my stoic and seemingly “snobbish” and “unapproachable” aura. There was no doubt that I was one of the top middle school spikers in the prefecture, if not in all of Japan. However, I had never won nationals, because volleyball was a team sport, and it wouldn’t do if I was the only one that was good and everybody else was simply average. Then came my third year, and in came a first year that had entered the school just to pair up with me-- and we did, and together, we carried our average team and made it as far as the finals of nationals.

But I never made it to the finals. That day, I never even made it out of the house. Sometimes I think about it and realize that maybe that “nervousness” I felt that day wasn’t from the fact that I was facing the strongest team in all of Japan, but maybe because something inside of me could feel that something wrong was going to happen. They said I hit an important nerve in my left leg, one that didn’t affect the rest of my body but hurt my left leg greatly. My leg ended up having to be amputated, and I put on a prosthetic. For the rest of my third year, I underwent physical therapy and graduated through independent studies.

I didn’t tell anybody about the accident, or about the new leg. I didn’t know how to tell them. I had never been one to express my feelings, and it seemed useless to start, since I had already resigned from the position of captain and was qualified for a school in a whole new prefecture. After that, there were rumors of me quitting because “all my opponents and teammates were too weak”. The former members of my club stopped trying to text me and I still think they never forgave me for abandoning them during finals. It was expected; even as captain, I was emotionless, strict, and never even truly connected with my teammates. They had every right to assume, because I too, can never forgive myself for being so clumsy that day.

Eren and Armin refer to that day as “The Fall”. They were there with me, and though I can’t remember exactly what happened, they were the ones who explained it to me. “It was sorta anticlimactic,” Eren told me. “You just kinda fell down the stairs and hit your knee on the corner of a chair.”

“Not a very Mikasa-like incident,” said Armin. And it was true, I would never expect myself to get injured in such a way. We laughed that off, but it felt like there was a dark cloud hovering just outside our fragile little bubble of happiness; the truth, and the weight of it.

 

 


End file.
